Why Do Tech Companies Dominate "Best Places To Work" Lists?

When the Great Place to Work Institute released its 2012 World's Best Multinational Workplaces list this month, ranking the world's 25 best employers - tech companies ruled. High-tech companies grabbed 9 of the 25 slots including 4 of the top 5.

It's a nice feather in the caps of Google, SAS, NetApp, Microsoft and the other winners, but beyond bragging rights, is there a point to this or any similar lists? Don't these awards always go to rich companies that can afford to pay and coddle their workers. Isn't that why fast-growing tech companies always seem to dominate them?

To find out, I asked a Director of Human Resources for a federal agency - who asked that ReadWrite not publish his name. He told me I was looking at the lists all wrong.

"I think they're great!" he said. Just not for employees. I was looking at the wrong consumers.

Impractical For Job Seekers

"They aren't very practical job-hunting tools," he explained, "unless you're young and mobile, and willing to go where the work takes you. But for employers ' particularly 'boring' employers like us ' they can put numbers on qualities we usually can't quantify, and that helps us compete."

His reasoning makes sense. Hip, well-funded companies offer catering, gyms, cocktail hours and a ton of perks that look great on a website. More traditional companies, particularly those (like the government) with budget constraints have to carve out less-sexy intangibles. "We have teams that have been working together for 30 years, and we really do operate as a family. We have solid benefits, a great retirement plan, and if something goes wrong and we have to lay off employees, we do everything in our power to find them work without disrupting their lives or incomes. But that's a horrible pitch, because it's fuzzy and it's tough to prove, without talking to our employees."

The Feds Do It Right!

It turns out the best, most complete report is the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which provides unparalleled transparency and detail. The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey was a great start, he says, because it provided actionable data he and other managers could use to make things better, and it gave his agency "a bit of an edge with recruiting transfers" from other agencies.

But the Great Places surveys' focus on employee trust was most exciting to him. "It's a measure of employee contentment, and I honestly think we can go toe-to-toe with the private sector on this. We may not be able to match salaries dollar-for-dollar, but if our employees are happier, applicants might take a closer look at why. And then we have a discussion."

Why Do Tech Companies Dominate?

So, why do so many tech companies dominate the list? Was it simply because they have the money to spend, or because their brand recognition makes them desirable?

He didn't think so. "Part of it might be their lack of legacy, sure. But mostly, I think it's because they're used to competing for the best, and they know what that takes. The good ones, like Google, know it takes an actual culture of support, and they've built that, as much as that makes my life hard when I have to recruit tech people in California. They're just ahead of the curve, and most of us have to catch up."

So there you have it, the tech companies that make the top of these lists really are likely to be good places to work - no matter what your salary.

Dos And Don'ts

Finally, if you really must use the Best Places To Work lists as job hunting tools, be sure to follow these Dos and Don'ts:

Don't use Best Places To Work lists as a primary job-hunting tool. Don't worry if your future employer isn't on a list - it might still be the perfect spot for you. Do use these lists to find new leads. Do consider high-ranked employers that you might have otherwise dismissed.

 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Oracle Has Problems Telling The Truth In Its Advertising

Oracle seems to have a problem with truth in advertising. Since April, the tech giant has had to pull three ads that claimed Oracle computers performed much better than IBM's.

Each time, Oracle offered no proof of its claims and the ads were dropped after IBM complained to the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Better Business Bureau (BBB). This sleazy behavior, called "strategically stupid" by one analyst, comes at a time when Oracle's hardware business is only limping along.

Oracle's Bad Behavior

The latest ad, pulled in November, said Oracle's Exadata server would run five times faster than IBM's Power Server "or you win $10,000,000." The NAD found that the ad did not provide "any speed performance tests, examples of comparative system speed superiority or any other data to substantiate the message. NAD determined that the advertiser's decision to permanently discontinue this advertisement was necessary and appropriate," the organization said in a statement.

Oracle did not respond to a request for comment, but the NAD said that the vendor disagreed with the group's findings. Oracle told the organization that it would take its "concerns into account should it disseminate similar advertising in the future."

Oracle's creativity in advertising appears to be more than the result of an overzealous ad exec. In July, the company got slapped by the NAD for saying a giant European retailer moved its database from an IBM Power server to Exadata and found it ran 20 times faster. Three months earlier, Oracle pulled an ad that made unsubstantiated claims that its SPARC SuperCluster T4-4 computer system ran Oracle apps and Java faster than IBM's speediest computer. All the challenged ads ran as full-page spreads in The Wall Street Journal and other publications.

"Three similar rulings in a period of eight months seems like a trend to me," said Jeff Cross, spokesman for IBM's Systems and Technology Group.

Lying Is "Strategically Stupid"

Oracle's decision to sign off on the ads was "strategically stupid," Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst for the <a href= "http://www.enderlegroup.com/"target="_blank">Enderle Group,</a> said in a column for CIO magazine. Enderle argues that Oracle is risking its credibility with large corporations, where IT managers put their jobs on the line in trusting vendors to deliver on major technology deals.

"The difficulty with false advertising is that it speaks to trust and enterprise vendors must be trusted to be successful," Enderle told ReadWrite. "But it really depends on how many customers become aware of this problem. Not many watch the BBB, but in this age of social media, this stuff is circulating and if you don't trust what you are being told by any vendor, and particularly in the enterprise class, you tend to avoid buying from them."

Oracle's Sales Slumping

Oracle's shameless behavior comes at a time when its hardware sales could be better. Worldwide factory revenue from its servers fell more than 23% in the third quarter, compared to the same period a year ago, according to IDC. The market as a whole dropped 4%. IBM led the pack in terms of revenue.

Oracle's hardware strategy is to sell servers with the company's database software and business applications. The hardware is based on technology acquired through its $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2010. So far, Oracle's success has been modest.

Sun hardware has not been a favorite of Oracle salespeople. According to text messages released in an unrelated legal dispute with Hewlett-Packard, one Oracle sales official wrote that Sun hardware "baaaallllloooooooows" and another called it a "pig with lipstick."

In the fiscal first quarter ended Aug. 3, Oracle sold $5.7 billion in software, but just $1.35 billion in hardware. Oracle has said that its hardware business is in transition as it drop some Sun systems to focus on high-margin products such as the new Oracle Exadata server.

Meanwhile, sales and earnings are expected to slow. Since 2006, Oracle earnings, excluding some items, has been growing an average of 20% annually, with sales rising 18% on average, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. During the next two fiscal years, ending May 2014, analysts expect per-share profit growth to slow to less than 10% annually and revenue growth to no more than 7%.

As long as Oracle remains silent on the ads, it's impossible to know the company's motives. But the longer Oracle's hardware business fails to take off, the more the sordid behavior looks like desperation.

 

Oracle plane image by Kunal Mehta / Shutterstock.com

Larry Ellison image by drserg / Shutterstock.com

It Happened To Me: My Small Business Was Hacked!

Last September, shortly after the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, a company tweeted me that they were going to make our site, SmallBizDaily.com, their 'small business resource of the day.' My joy was short-lived when the next morning they tweeted that my site had been hacked.

I quickly checked (it was still early morning on the West Coast, where we're located) and sure enough, instead of the usual array of small-business content I was greeted by an unfamiliar image of a Middle Eastern-looking man, Arabic lettering and a video about the glories of Allah. I blinked, gulped more caffeine and reloaded the page. No luck ' the image was still there. 'We've been hacked,' I muttered, still not believing what I was seeing.

Weeks Of Agony - Months Of Work

Then followed two weeks of agony and struggle as our Web-hosting company worked to deal with the situation, while also helping their many other small-business clients who had been hacked as well.

It seems someone had placed malicious code on our site that lay dormant for months -- and only popped up that morning. 'It was like cancer,' recalls my business partner, who dealt with the situation. 'To make sure [the code] was really gone, we had to clean out all of the files we had loaded since the initial hack.'

Months of work was wiped out ' and every time we thought it was fixed, the hack popped up again. I was repeatedly embarrassed; it seemed every time I would tell someone (including the company that originally told me about the hack) the site was fine, within minutes the hack would reappear. We then had to delete and reload more files, more times than I care to remember.

We Were Lucky!

Believe it or not, my company was one of the lucky ones. David Maman, founder and CTO of database security company GreenSQL, said our hack was the 'old-fashioned' kind.

'Five or 10 years ago, the purpose of hacking was defacement,' explained Maman, an international expert in computer security who has founded seven tech companies. 'It was very obvious when you were hacked ' a friend would call and say 'Hey, what's going on with your website?' Today, with a successful SQL injection hack, there will be no sign that someone has retrieved your entire database.'

How can you be hacked without knowing it? If it can happen to Sony and LinkedIn, he said, it can certainly happen to your small business.

Tech Startups Especially Vulnerable

Ironically, tech startups ' with their low budgets, long hours and cocky techies coding day and night on their personal laptops and mobile devices ' may actually be more vulnerable to hacks than less tech-oriented businesses.

Changes in the nature of business have affected how hackers operate, said Maman, 'Everything is about online today, and almost every [business] is providing some type of online service or app. As a result, the line between internal and external data is blurred, and all of your information is exposed.'

You might think you have nothing to worry about if you aren't selling products or collecting card data online. Think again, he says, who explains that most hack attacks today are completely automated. 'They don't even know who you are ' they just check websites for vulnerabilities, and if they find them, they will attack.'

In fact, ecommerce companies or other businesses that collect customer credit and payment data may be less at risk of hacking because they must be PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant. 'These regulations are actually beneficial,' said Maman.

What if, like so many small business owners, you simply provide a free app or service? All you're collecting from customers is their registration information, which could be as simple as their name and email ' so what do you care if it's compromised?

'Data is the new currency,' he warned ' and that includes any type of data, not just financial information.

Maman explained that hackers may manipulate customer data to inject malicious code that serves up competitors' information instead of your own, penetrates the customer's computer, or worse.

'It's not about losing information ' which may not be worth that much ' but about harming your customers, hurting your brand and destroying your reputation.'

If a customer's computer gets infected after using your service, are they likely to return? Worst of all, you won't even know your business has been hacked until it slowly withers and dies as customers fade away.

What To Do If It Happens To You?

'If in the past it was a big taboo to let customers know that you've been hacked, today it's not,' he said, citing LinkedIn as an example. 'Letting your customers know won't hurt you ' it will show that you're being responsible.'

Ask them to change their passwords on your site and on any other sites where they use the same password. Apologize; then explain what measures you will take to make sure the hack won't happen again.

Beef Up Your Defense

Those measures should include three key steps:

1. Secure your coding. 'Most of the basic attacks, and even some of the more advanced ones, are due to unprofessional coding,' said Maman. 'There's a lot of information online about how to secure coding.' Educate yourself and take the steps.

2. Harden your computers at the operating-system level, applications level, server level, network-access level and even the individual customer level. Hardening essentially means eliminating unnecessary software, restricting access and otherwise blocking everything that is not essential. 'Hardening documentation can be found online,' he said.

3. Use free and open-source software. Security doesn't have to cost a lot for a small business. 'ModSecurity is a free, open-source Web application firewall,' said Maman. 'GreenSQL Express is our free database firewall.'

Most of all, pay attention to security. Without the money for a dedicated IT security staffer, your team needs to be even more responsible than big-company employees about what's running on their devices.

Don't worry; security doesn't have to be a business killer.

'People think of IT security as a hassle, a lot of work and a waste of time,' he said. 'That's not the case. Just one day's work can increase your security level 100%.'

 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

The 3 Things You Can't Do On Twitter

Americans tend to think of free speech as allowing us to say just about anything we want, minus shouting "fire" in a crowded theater or threatening violence. But does that mean you have the same rights on a social network, specifically Twitter? Hey, it's not a government entity, it's a company. So does this free speech blanket apply? Years ago when the FCC still held weight, George Carlin famously recounted the "7 words you can't say on TV" - is there a similar list of things you can't say on Twitter?

Well, yes and no. 

Twitter does not mediate content. It doesn't matter who you are, whether celebrity, government agency, corporation or regular Joe, the micro-blogging service does not regulate what you say. But if one of its users reports you for violating one of the site's tenets, then you may be in trouble. Twitter isn't actively seeking out misdeeds by users, but if one is reported, it actively delves in and investigates. So there are things you can't say, even though the rules aren't always enforced. 

 

No-Nos

Twitter's rules outline several things users are not allowed to do or say. Impersonation, harassment and abusive behavior, and posting private information are all straight-forward policy violations. Twitter can suspend users accounts for violations of these rules. The service may also suspend accounts in response to official requests from law enforcement or government agencies. Once Twitter is notified of tweets in question, it can then withhold tweets for that specific country. 

Legal issues aren't always clear, though. International jurisdictional differences often lead to complications. For example, something that would be legal to say in America could be illegal in Germany (denying the Holocaust, for example, is legal in the U.S., illegal in Germany). If German courts prosecuted or users called out that activity, Twitter could suspend the user and remove those tweets from the stream in Germany. But if the tweets were posted from a place where they were legal, like here in the U.S., Twitter won't do anything for American streams. Free speech is a country-by-country issue, not a blanket Twitter policy. 

Users can also be suspended if they tweet too much over an extended period of time. There's a 1,000 tweets per day limit on updates and if a user goes over they are automatically put into "Twitter jail" for several hours (BundlePost CEO Robert Caruso says he's been kicked off Twitter hundreds of times, specifically every Friday because he breaks the limit, responding to each one of his thousands of #ff mentions). The daily update limit is further broken down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals. Despite rumors stating otherwise, there is no way to request a higher ceiling on postings. 

When it comes right down to it, though, there are three things pretty much guaranteed to get you kicked off Twitter:

1. Child Pornography: Accounts promoting or containing updates with links to the sexual exploitation of children are permanently suspended. It doesn't get more straight-forward than this. In America, anything under 18 is off-limits, and this rule extends globally. 

2. Direct Violence Threats: Specific threats of bodily harm include details of how and when an act will take place. Posts that say a person will come to a certain spot at a particular time and be injured or hurt are clear red flags. Everything from terrorism and crime to bounties and beatdowns. It's all out of bounds. 

3. Spam: Automated replies to people requesting follows or clicks, heavy linkage to promotional content. Sending these robot messages are one of the biggest no-nos. Fake followers are a big problem for Twitter, and many are spammers. It's unclear just how many of the 200 million tweets sent out every day come from bots, but that number is high. 

How Does Twitter Catch Violators?

Twitter has no algorithim looking for specific words, no team of people trolling the site looking for violations. Instead the service relies on its 140 million users to monitor and report violations of its rules and Terms of Service.

Hey it's cheaper, and with no unified, global legal system, each country has its own interpretation of what's acceptable and unacceptable - regional legal counsels help the company mitigate cultural concerns. While algorithms exist for malware detection and phishing, the site looks to its users to determine what does and doesn't violate its terms. Every violation that is flagged is then looked at by Twitter's staff on a case-by-case basis. Most are false alarms, usually people reporting things they simply don't like or don't agree with. If Twitter does see a violation, it can suspend the account, sometimes forever.

What To Do If You Get Kicked Off?

So, what to do if you're suspended? Accounts nabbed for child exploitation are suspended permanently, without exceptions.   

Accounts that aren't violating the child pornography rule are typically given abuse warnings. They may also be allowed to edit for parody, which means if an account is parodying a user or situation and is suspended (for example for impersonation), then that user has can label themselves as a parody in their bio to make it clear (here's the policy in detail). Once suspended, users are required to state that they will not break rules again before being allowed back on. Permanent suspension is incurred if they fail to do so.

Second chances are granted only for accounts temporarily suspended for minor offenses. But second chances usually don't mean just one second chance. If a violator is merely posting too much, and is put into Twitter jail, there is no cap to how many times they can be suspended and reinstated. However, if an account or user breaks major rules like implying violence or spamming and do not curtail their behavior, they will be permanently banned. 

Rule of thumb: Follow the rules. 

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock and Paul Shirey.

YouTube On The Wii -- Another Step Toward The New World Of TV

Good news: If you're hoping to show your grandma that awesome cat video this holiday season, you probably won't have to huddle around a computer or tablet screen. As yet another confirmation of the ongoing trend merging online video and gaming, Google introduced a YouTube app for the Nintendo Wii earlier this month. The combination is helping to change the way we watch TV. 

Wii and Wii U owners can get the app through the Wii Marketplace. Its layout is simple enough, with recommended channels and favorited ones already on display after you log in. The Wii app looks nothing like the YouTube website, which is a good thing. Despite the tediousness of typing with the traditional Wii console, searching is quick. And things are even better on the Wii U. The new device's second screen  puts all of the description and playback controls in the handset, keeping the main screen clear of distraction. After the video you've just watched is done the next one in that channel's line up automatically starts. 

Not the First TV/Gaming Mashup

This isn't the first such move for Google or Nintendo.  In early November, Google released its own YouTube-centric version of Apple's Airplay, which lets you play videos from your Android tablet on TVs equipped Google TV. In fact, YouTube is available on over 400 million devices, including set-top streaming devices like Boxee, SmartTVs and other gaming consoles. As for Nintendo, Netflix and Hulu have been available on the Wii console for about two years.

So what happened to bring the two together now? 

Fon one thing, the release of the Wii U is refocusing attention on the Wii platform. And just like the other game console makers, Nintendo is desperate to turn its device into the main entertainment system for the living room. Most homes already have a gaming console holding a spot on their entertainment center. So if you wanted to watch a YouTube video while hanging out at home one night, you don't have to get a new device, just use what you've already got. For Google, the goal is simple, it wants to put YouTube everywhere it can.

TV Change Is Already Here

The way we watch TV is changing, as streaming over the Internet slowly but surely replaces cable TV subscriptions. What hasn't changed much is where we watch. Internet TV viewing may have started in our home offices on our computers but it has migrated in two directions, to mobile devices anywhere and to big screens in the living room.

Matt Darby, product manager at YouTube, said platforms like the Wii put YouTube in a space where people spend a lot of time with family and friends. "Bringing YouTube into the living room gives people a limitless selection of content to watch, alongside traditional broadcast TV," he said. The TV in hte living room isn't going away, but more and more people don't want to limit its use to just traditional television fare. Google and Nintendo - along with Apple, Microsoft, Sony and many others want to be the ones to make that possible.

(For more on the convergence of TV and game consoles, see Brian Proffitt's The End Of Cable TV? How Everyone Will Watch Television In The Future.)

Image courtesy of the YouTube blog.

Is BitTorrent The Future Of Book Publishing? Tim Ferriss Is Banking On It

If you walk into your local Barnes & Noble looking for a copy of Timothy Ferriss's new book, good luck. Even though he's a New York Times best selling author, the giant book retailer refuses to sell The 4-Hour Chef, the latest in his series of self-help books. 

Ferriss isn't worried. He's banking on the power of digital distribution to make up for any losses in print sales. Ironically, one of his most effective tools may end up being something most content creators have grown to fear, if not outright despise: BitTorrent.

After publishing two wildly successful books via traditional means, Ferriss decided to try something different. In August, he signed on with Amazon's new publishing arm to release the follow-up to his 2010 health and fitness guide, The 4-Hour Body. That ruffled the features of not just traditional publishers, but also bricks-and-mortar retailers like Barnes and Noble, who object to the e-bookstore exclusivity Amazon requires of its authors. That's why you won't find Ferriss's latest opus down the street at Barnes & Noble. 

As fast as e-books are growing, the lack of a presence in the nation's largest physical book retailer is a still serious handicap. To combat it, Ferriss struck a deal with BitTorrent earlier this month to distribute an exclusive bundle of content and, he hopes, sell a few extra books. 

"We were both eager to do something to demonstrate that the same type of tools that disrupted music and film can be harnessed to benefit the content creators in publishing," says Ferriss. 

How BitTorrent Is Moving Beyond Piracy

But wait. BitTorrent? Aren't they the bad guys?

To be sure, forging a partnership with the company behind the same-peer-to-peer filesharing technology that fuels rampant piracy would be unthinkable for most major publishers. In fact, they're sometimes known to sue BitTorrent users for downloading e-books. But the San Francisco-based company is working hard to rebrand itself as a legitimate partner for content creators, and there's no better way to do that than by partnering with established creators like Ferriss.

For Ferriss, BitTorrent is just an incredibly efficient way to distribute content to a large number of users. And BitTorrent has plenty of them. When asked why he wanted to enter into this partnership, the first words out of Ferriss's mouth were "one hundred and sixty million users." It's hard to argue with that. 

Here's how it works: To coincide with the launch of his book, Ferriss put together a folder of additional, exclusive content: a 62-page PDF previewing the book, behind-the-scenes photos, videos and early, hand-marked notes. It's pretty meaty, but doesn't come anywhere close to spoiling the 672-page book he's trying to sell. 

It's not just that this content bundle is available for free to Bit Torrent users. It's that Ferriss's face - along with a link to download the bundle torrent and buy the book - is on Bit Torrent's homepage, from which hundreds of thousands of users download the file-sharing client every day. 

BitTorrent has been experimenting with this type of featured content for about two years. The list of artists it has partnered with includes increasingly higher profile names like The Counting Crows, DJ Shadow and Pretty Lights, an American DJ and producer. BitTorrent has also worked directly with the Internet Archive to make more than one petabyte of public-domain content available via the P2P network. 

It's all part of the company's effort not to just to distance itself from piracy, but to figure out how it can be a bigger part of the legitimate future of digital distribution. 

"If you look at what BitTorrent really is, it's quite simply the best way to move ones and zeros across the Internet," says Matt Mason, the company's Executive Director of Marketing. That makes it a valuable tool for creators, but also helps the company figure out its own strategy moving forward. 

"The reason we're doing all of this is to try and figure out what to build next," says Mason. That is, if these experiments work, the company can develop tools to help publishers and artists launch their own promotional campagns and take even better advantage of the platform. 

Is This Experiment Working?

So does partnering with BitTorrent work? The early numbers look promising, even if they're not all the kind of hard dollar figures media executives want to see. The payoff is less direct that that, but it can still be huge. Pretty Lights, for example, may or may not have sold more records as a result of publishing his BitTorrent bundle of free music and video of a live performance. But after his bundle soared to the top of Pirate Bay's download chart, the DJ saw a 700% increase in traffic to his website, collected 100,000 email addresses and, probably not entirely by coincidence, sold out two concerts at the Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. 

For Ferriss, it's still too early to tell. But the initial numbers aren't bad. In the first week of the campaign, his bundle has been downloaded 211,000 times, BitTorrent told ReadWrite. More than 85,000 people have clicked through to the book's listing on Amazon (no word on how many ordered it), while 27,000 people viewed the book's trailer on YouTube. 

Even if the book only sold 100 extra copies, Ferris says, the promotion would have been worth it to him, because the amount of setup time required was so minimal. He expects to sell far more copies than that, but the real value comes in experimenting with new distribution channels. He is "not overly concerned" about the prospect of his e-book itself being shared on BitTorrent, which he views as a valuable promotional tool. 

"One of many reasons to embrace new technologies or new applications of existing technologies is the benefit that you get of being first," says Ferriss. If nothing else, such a paradoxical-seeming partnership has a way of garnering more media coverage than a typical book launch. 

"It's a wide open field for people to play in," Ferriss says. "Very few people have taken advantage of this so I would absolutely recommend it."

How To Get The Most Out Of A Startup Accelerator

Startup accelerators: There are more of them - and more demand to land a spot within one - than ever before.  But how can you make sure your company gets the most out of the accelerator experience?

To find out how real startup founders dealt with the accelerator issue, we asked eight successful entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC)  to share their experiences - and their advice for other founders considering a startup accelerator.  

1. Build A Relationship

Build a strong relationship with the people in charge of the accelerator. A common problem with entrepreneurs is that they go into their caves and forget to build the relationships necessary for their companies to grow. They'll learn more and there will be more opportunities heading their way when they establish those connections. - John Hall, Digital Talent Agents 

2. Step Up Your Game, But Don't Get Distracted

Last year, Her Campus was a winner and named Best All-Around Team in MassChallenge, the world's largest start-up competition. We took advantage of the free office space we received and moved our business there, we networked with mentors who were connected to the program, we got free legal help from law firm sponsors, and got access to helpful seminars and workshops. However, we made sure to stay focused on building our business and not get distracted by all of the other activities we could partake in every day as part of the program. - Stephanie Kaplan, Her Campus Media  

3. Be Proactive

I have been a part of both Startup Chile and now TechStars in Boston. The programs are very different, however with any program it's important to be proactive. If you can clearly define what relationships you want to build, people you want to meet, and goals you would like to achieve, it will allow the program to help you! The accelerators are there to make introductions and they want you to be successful, so utilize their knowledge and network by asking them for the things that you need. - Paige Brown, BookingMarkets  

4. Take Advantage Of Mentors

I participated in Teens In Tech, an amazing accelerator for teens. They provided wonderful support, with classes, office space, connections and mentors. To get the most out of an accelerator you really need to take advantage of the network of mentors. They're the ones who are always willing to help and make a difference in your business. - Ben Lang, EpicLaunch  

5. Match Startup Needs To Accelerator Offerings

My company, Imprint Energy, was part of Plug and Play's accelerator in Silicon Valley. We're a battery technology company, so we didn't benefit much from having access to desk space, computing resources or the community of predominantly Internet entrepreneurs. We needed lab space and access to scientists and engineers, which we found elsewhere. What has proved useful is our continued relationship with Plug and Play and its facilitation of meetings with large corporate partners and potential customers who frequent the offices. - Brooks Kincaid, Imprint Energy  

6. Find Great Financial Advisors

Finding mentors is one of the many reasons that startups use an accelerator. In particular, use your accelerator to help you set up your accounting and finances. The key to strong startup financials is to set them up early and correctly. Advisors can help establish your day-to-day accounting functions like setting up an accounting system, establishing payroll and preparing financial statements. They can also offer guidance on larger financial strategy concerns such as creating a budget, understanding your cash flow and cash burn, and maintaining regulatory compliance. - David Ehrenberg, Early Growth Financial Services  

7. Do You Really Need An Accelerator?

I researched the topic of accelerators extensively as I was getting my business off the ground, but fortunately, I ended up being able to fund my startup completely with personal funds. It's important to understand the difference between an accelerator and an incubator. An accelerator involves smaller amounts of capital, smaller amounts of equity and a shorter time frame, while an incubator usually involves bringing in an outside management staff and giving up more equity. The best way to get the most out of an accelerator is to be open to feedback, but be smart enough to filter out what you don't feel is relevant. Also, shop around before you make your final decision. There are more accelerators available now than ever before, and it's important to ask for references. - Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance  

8. Do Your Due Diligence

Not all accelerators are created equal. With the growth of the entrepreneurial space has come a similar pop in the programs available for startups. Some are worth their weight in gold, while others are just looking to churn and burn their clients. Do your diligence before signing on - it is easy to find current and past startups of any accelerator who can give you real insight into what you are signing up for and whether the price is right. - Peter Minton, Minton Law Group, P.C.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only non-profit organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Cyber Monday Scorecard: Web Users Win, Mobile Users Wait

Shoppers flocked to the Web's e-commerce sites over the long Holiday weekend, and Web retailers welcomed them with open arms and fast response times while ringing up record sales. But customers hoping to shop via their smartphones met the equivalent of long lines.

According to Akamai Technologies, traffic to online retail sites topped 8.5 million page views per minute on what has become known as 'Cyber Monday,' just before 9pm Eastern Time. That peak was the largest retail traffic spike in history, Lelah Manz, the chief strategist of commerce at Akamai, wrote in a blog post.

All the traffic seems to have paid off in dollar sales, too: According to IBM's Digital Analytics Benchmark, online sales jumped 30.3% over 2011, which would break comScore's forecast of a 20% increase in online sales, or $1.5 billion on that one day alone. 

Online, Amazon was the big winner on Cyber Monday, enjoying a 36% increase to almost 35 million visits, as measured by Experian; Walmart and Best Buy were close behind.

A Big Online Shopping Win

'I think the only way to describe the Thanksgiving openings was a huge win,' the president and chief executive of the National Retail Federation (NRF), Matthew Shay told reporters in a Sunday briefing. 'And in that regard lots of people won this weekend, and it wasn't just Notre Dame and Ohio State.'

According to the NRF, which includes both brick-and-mortar as well as online retailers, shoppers are beginning to treat Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday as a five-day holiday, with both brick-and-mortar and online shoppers benefiting. 'It's becoming more and more of a tradition,' Shay said.

Thanksgiving was a 'blow-out traffic day,' wrote Akamai's Manz, with an early peak of 4,910,674 page views per minute at Noon Eastern Time, then an even bigger peak of 7,411,734 page views per minute at 10pm. Just as in 2011, Thanksgiving drove higher shopping spikes, but Black Friday produced consistently more page views overall - 25% more, according to Akamai. Unexpectedly, though, Cyber Monday topped them both, generating a 13% higher spike than Thanksgiving, and 16% more traffic volume than Black Friday. Cyber Monday online sales were up more than 36% compared to Black Friday, IBM reported.

'Cyber Monday was not only the pinnacle of the Thanksgiving shopping weekend but when the cash register closed it officially became the biggest online shopping day ever,' said Jay Henderson, strategy director of IBM Smarter Commerce, in a statement. 'Retailers that adopted a smarter marketing approach to commerce were able to adjust to the shifting shopping habits of their customers, whether in-store, online or via their mobile device of choice, and fully benefit from this day and the entire holiday weekend.' 

Most Web Retailers Were Prepared

While most sites planned for a surge of traffic via PCs, some notable retailers apparently did not, with mobile sites being even worse. According to Panopta, Kmart, Sears and CDW fared the worst, with outages that topped a total of ten hours in Kmart and Sears' case. Although those outages were spread out going back to November 10, a total of 41 sites failed to meet the goal of 99.9% uptime, the lowester threshold for an acceptable online presence. The top five worst-performing sites also included TigerDirect and Victoria's Secret; other notables that failed to meet the 99.9% threshold included Gamefly, Gamestop, Office Depot, Blockbuster and Shutterfly.

Other e-tailers excelled. Compuware's Application Performance Management (APM) system named Apple, Costco, JCPenney, Dell and Overstock (O.co) the fastest Web sites. Panopta credited a number of major online retailers, including Amazon, Apple, Buy.com, Costco, eBay, Kohls, Lowes, REI, Staples and Target, among others, with suffering no downtime whatsoever. That's a significant change from past years, when even the largest retailers sometimes staggered under the load.

Traffic to retail Web sites for North America, via Akamai.

'Even with record numbers of visitors coming to online retailers, it is clear that most of them were prepared for the traffic this year,' Compuware said in a statement. 'Throughout the holiday weekend and into Cyber Monday, no major retailer suffered a significant online outage. And when issues were detected with sites, in most cases it resulted from third-party content having performance issues, not the host site. This is a problem retailers need to attend to.'

What About Mobile?

The problem, if there was one, was that most e-tailers still prioritize shoppers coming from desktop and laptop PCs. They either forgot about or didn't have the resources to properly service mobile consumers trying buy something on the go or compare online prices to what they saw in brick-and-mortar stores. 

This last practice, dubbed 'showrooming,' has been exploited by Amazon with apps that allowed mobile shoppers to take pictures of items and scan barcodes, then find the same product online. But retailers like Macy's have begun to fight back, with apps that offer 'unpublished' deals to shoppers who are physically within their stores. Shopkick, another third-party app, published a 'black book' of deals for retailers like Old Navy, offering in-store deals as well.

Mobile performance issues could also impact showrooming. Accessing mobile sites and apps can take a relatively long time even on the best of days, and during the extraordinarily busy holiday period few sites managed to offer anything close to a speedy mobile shopping experience. 

Compuware said the five fastest mobile sites were Office Depot,  Barnes and Noble, Williams-Sonoma, Buy.com and HSN, and that mobile traffic grew more than 250% for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Cyber Monday saw mobile traffic volumes that were slightly lower than Black Friday, the company said, but the volume of mobile visitors was substantially higher than these same retailer sites saw during the previous week. That makes sense, as the whole point of Cyber Monday is that shoppers are back at their work computers. Overall, of the sites Compuware tracked, only 10% of site visits were accessed via a smartphone.

Keynote provided more granular numbers, but tracked just six sites that it claimed delivered the full mobile page in less than 7 seconds: Toolfetch (which loaded in a sparkling 2.96 seconds), Office Depot (3.15 seconds), Barnes & Noble (4.95 seconds), Buy.com (6.40 seconds), Amazon.com (6.56 seconds), Best Buy (6.63 seconds), Grainger (4.66 seconds), HSN (6.74 seconds) and Sears (6.95 seconds). 

For its part, online payment service PayPal reported 196% more mobile payment volume on Cyber Monday 2012 than Cyber Monday 2011. That indicates that many shoppers were buying using their smartphones even while at work. 

So what were all those people actually buying? Well, Microsoft claimed it sold more than 750,000 Xbox 360 consoles in the U.S. alone. 

Image source: Flickr/Wesley Fryer

How PayPal Innovation Is Driving Online Payments [Sponsored Post]

As the world moves at the speed of technology, the way you pay for it all needs to be fast, secure and broadly available. PayPal has been filling that role online for more than a decade.

Initially launched as a way to let people pay for goods and services online without sharing your credit card information, PayPal has expanded its range of Internet financial services to let people not just pay online with PayPal, but now in stores and via their phones. As currencies continue to go digital, PayPal is helping lead the way toward the digital wallet - and beyond.

Available Wherever You Are

Sheer breadth of availability is one of PayPal's most alluring but most overlooked features. The service is available in 190 countries and supports payments in 25 different currencies. Millions of merchants in the U.S. and globally accept PayPal. PayPal is also widely accepted by millions of active users, making it a safe bet that you or someone you know has a PayPal account.

But that's only part of the story. Users can also download the PayPal app for mobile phones or tablets to help manage account and receive deals. They can also conveniently make purchases using PayPal when shopping via mobile phone. Thinking about that new set of skis while you're on the beach? PayPal can help make that happen.

Thinking beyond the browser, PayPal has launched an effort to make itself available in other venues. The service can already be used offline at such stores as Jamba Juice, Home Depot, Abercrombie & Fitch and Foot Locker. 

While shopping at a store that supports PayPal, you can make your purchase in a couple of ways. First, you can type in your mobile phone number and your PayPal PIN to complete the transaction. You can also swipe your PayPal card. It's automatically attached to your digital wallet.

For coupon fans, PayPal has also eliminated the need to clip and carry paper coupons - PayPal sends you relevant coupons for you to choose which ones you want to save to your account, then, they're automatically applied when you make a purchase using PayPal. With PayPal, all your debit and credit cards, money and bank accounts are stored in one virtual location, giving you the flexibility to pay with the card or account of your choice. You can also set up your PayPal account to link your favorite loyalty cards. When you pay with PayPal, you still get your miles, rewards, or even cash back.

Security Where It Counts

PayPal is not a bank, but since it's been the financial platform of choice of eBay for more than a decade, PayPal's security and privacy systems have been battle tested. PayPal keeps your financial information private and protected when you shop. You never have to give out your financial details to merchants or sellers - because they are secure inside PayPal.

To pay with PayPal online, you need only your email address and a password. When paying offline, you need either a mobile phone and a PIN, or a card that is linked directly to your PayPal account. Either way, you don't have to retype and share your sensitive information at various merchants. Rest assured, this takes nearly all of the security risk out of shopping. PayPal also includes a stringent fraud protection program that protects shoppers from any unsolicited financial transactions.

You can also receive payments through PayPal. If friends or family owe you money - or if you're collecting funds from various people to pitch in on a gift - they can send you the money via PayPal. All they need is your email address linked to your PayPal account. Even better news is that it's very fast - as soon as the money is sent, it is available for the recipient to use. Unlike waiting for a check to clear or your account to be credited by a card company, you don't have to wait for funds to be reflected in your account with PayPal.

Innovation For E-Commerce - Moving It To Offline

PayPal offers multiple offline solutions depending on the size of the merchant to accommodate their needs. For example, PayPal Here offers solutions for small merchants that don't have a permanent location, such as home remodelers, caterers, make- up artists, booths at a farmer's market, etc. PayPal also has a mobile check in solution for small to midsize merchants that do have a storefront and need inventory management - but don't need the full integration mentioned above where consumers pay using mobile phone and PIN or with a card.

In these smaller stores, customers can pay through the PayPal app on their smartphones by 'checking in' to the store through the app. The customer's photo pops up on the cashier's screen and when they're ready to pay, the cashier uses the photo to verify identity, taps on it, and the transaction is automatically paid through the customer's PayPal account. No cash or credit cards ever trade hands.  

The company has fine-tuned its financial services to accept payment methods such as bank deposits, checks and money orders, escrow payments and credit cards. Instead of using embedded chips in credit cards to authenticate, PayPal relies on cloud-computing services to secure information and provide always-on access to finances.

As the world becomes more digitized, a fast, secure and broadly available financial system is increasingly critical. PayPal is in a unique position to deliver that functionality and help digital wallets become the de-facto standard for even basic transactions. And the new payment options can only help shoppers by making it easier to buy what they want, when they want, where they want, and how they want.

Nokia Lumia 920: Not The Windows Phone For Me

I sat in the front row of Nokia's Windows Phone event in New York in September, watching Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his Nokia counterpart Stephen Elop clasp arms and smile for the crowd and present the Lumia 920. At the time, I thought to myself, 'you know, this may be the phone that gets Nokia back in the game.'

I reserve the right to change my mind. 

At first blush, Nokia's new flagship Windows Phone was everything I had been looking for from a high-end Windows Phone. It has impressive Near Field Communications (NFC) features with its ability to transfer music from the device to a set of speakers or headphones. It has a wireless charging feature that works with a  'pillow' or that same set of speakers. It has Nokia's well-reviewed PureView camera technology with Carl Zeiss optics that rival any other smartphone in the business, including Apple's iPhone 5 and anything from Samsung. Slap on a quality battery (non-removable, industry-competitive 2000 mAh) and I thought, 'Nokia might be on to something here.'

Ballmer (left) and Elop present the Nokia Lumia 920

That was before I started playing with the Lumia 920. 

I have never been a fan on 'unboxing' videos where bloggers film themselves opening a box of a new device and showing off what is inside. Yet, I kind of wish I had done so with the Lumia 920. The amount of cursing expressed in my first five minutes with the device would have made good cinema.

• First thought: 'Damn, this thing is heavy.' 
• Second thought: 'Damn, this thing is freaking* blue.'
• Third thought: 'Why the hell is it taking so long to start up?'
• Fourth, fifth, sixth thoughts: 'I bloody hell hate how long and how many steps Microsoft puts your through to set up the device when you first turn it on.'
• Seventh thought: 'Oh, Windows Phone, I want to like you and praise you for being different, but there is little actually simple, interesting or intuitive with Hubs and Tiles.'
• Eighth thought: 'Wait? Where the hell is Spotify?'

(*Note: I may have used a word stronger than 'freaking.' Also, I have no choice in the color of review devices I am sent from Nokia. I am not a fan of blue. The Lumia 920 comes in a variety of colors including white, black, red, yellow and blue. I would have preferred red or black. I have not been able to confirm this (though not for want of asking people from Microsoft, Nokia or HTC ' nobody seems to know or they just will not tell me) but I think the color scheme for Windows Phone devices is the brainchild of Microsoft, not Nokia. HTC's Windows Phones also come in a variety of colors.)

Let's break down my list of curses.

Carry The Weight

When it comes to a smartphone, I am particularly sensitive to size, shape and weight. A smartphone is perhaps the most personal electronic device ever made. It travels everywhere you go, in your pocket or your bag, and if the size, shape or weight feel wrong, you won't like it as much as you should. This is one reason why people have historically liked the iPhone and why Apple works so hard to make it slimmer and more streamlined. Apple fully understands the value of a device that 'feels' good.

For instance, the Samsung Galaxy Note II is a fine device, I just find its enormity awkward when the purpose is to be used as a phone . At least the Note II is thin and light despite its gargantuan 5.55-inch screen. The Lumia 920 is neither thin nor light. If you are attempting to switch to the 920 from most Android devices or an iPhone, you are definitely going to notice the bulk.

Left to right: Galaxy Note II, Nokia Lumia 920, HTC One X

At 185 grams, (about 6.5 ounces), the Lumia 920 is 73 grams heavier than the iPhone 5 (112 grams ' about 3.9 ounces). Despite having a screen a little more than an inch smaller than the Note II (4.5 inches for against 5.55 inches), the Lumia 920 weighs five grams more. The Samsung Galaxy S 3 is considerably lighter, too, at about 133 grams (4.7 ounces). 

Releasing a device that is noticeably bulkier than the iPhone 5 or the latest Galaxy flagships is not a very good way to compete with Apple and Samsung. Worse, Lumia line keeps getting bigger, not smaller. The original Lumia 800, announced in October 2011, was a joy to hold. It had a little heft to it but the body was sleek and pleasant. The Lumia 900, released in April 2012, was bigger but did not feel quite as cumbersome as the 920. The 920 is essentially the Lumia 900 on steroids. 

It is hard to tell exactly why the Lumia 920 is so heavy other than to note all the hardware upgrades it includes. Wireless charging, bigger battery, advanced NFC capability, the PureView technology, et al. likely added up to a bigger, heavier body. 

Top to bottom: HTC One X, Nokia Lumia 920, Samsung Galaxy Note II

Windows Phone 8

Microsoft is spending a large fortune on its marketing for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT. For Windows Phone 8, Microsoft touts its simplicity and easy-to-understand interface.

I call shenanigans. 

On the surface (no pun intended), Windows Phone 8 is simple. Everything you might like to use is pre-loaded on the home screen in the form of Live Tiles. Really, this is little different from any other modern smartphone, including the iPhone or any Android device - with the exception that Live Tiles can show you information on what's going on in the app they represent even before you open them.

If you are switching from iOS or Android, though, Windows Phone is going take some time to figure out.

The first hurdle with Windows Phone (be it version 8 or anything that came before) is that you are going to have to go through a significant amount of steps before you even use the device. Things are only a little easier if you have an @live.com account from Microsoft. These set-up wizards are classic Microsoft - and a touch infuriating. No other mobile operating system makes you jump through so many hoops just to get going (Android is the simplest of the group, with all of your data imported to your device once you sign into your Google account). 

When you finally reach the home screen, the now-familiar Hubs and Tiles are presented, replete with a selection of bloatware from both AT&T and Nokia. Many tiles are self explanatory, such as the phone icon, Internet Explorer and email. But not all the tiles have clear definitions. For instance, the 'People' tile is essentially your contacts list turned into an app. It can import all your Facebook, Twitter and phone contacts and then update with pictures of those people.

Somehow, though, Microsoft has managed to complicate what should be simple. Microsoft has essentially created a unified contacts "app" (or Hub, as Microsoft prefers) with all of your disparate contacts in one place. Perhaps this is a conceptual problem for me, but I do not want my Facebook friends in my contact list by default. But if you want to use Facebook on your Windows Phone, those contacts are going to be in there. If find it cumbersome and annoying. 

The Messages (not including email) tile is similarly complex - it incorporates SMS, Facebook Chat and instant messaging into a single space. There is value to a single messaging inbox, but the Windows Phone version is confusing. And you don't get a choice whether you'd prefer a distinct SMS app instead of all of your messages in one spot regardless of where they come from? As for me, I'd be happier with a simple dedicated chat app, a dedicated SMS app and so on. 

Users will have to explore the rest of the pre-installed tiles individually to see what they do - and many of them make you jump through hoops for sign-in and permissions that are often difficult to comprehend. 

Paucity Of Apps & Design Decisions

Windows Phone 8 also continues Microsoft's tradition of poor design for its native apps. 

Smartphones, by their very nature, have limited screen space. Mobile app design experts know to optimize their apps' most important aspects while marginalizing (hopefully in a stylish way) less vital features. Microsoft seems to miss the boat here. 

For instance, look at the Microsoft Office app for Windows Phone 8. Note that the header of the app says 'Office' in big red letters. The bottom has a gray bar with a search icon and a folder and the settings button. An app designer I know looked at that and said, 'why the heck is Microsoft wasting all this space with the header and footer?' Issues like that crop up in many of Microsoft's own apps.

Beyond the problems with Windows Phone 8's built-in apps, the bigger issue is Windows Phone's lack of third-party apps, and it's even worse in WIndows Phone 8.  Apps built for Windows Phone 7/7.5 have to be specifically updated to even function in the Windows Phone 8 operating system. This makes it much easier for developers to build apps that will work across Windows 8/RT/Phone but it causes problems Windows Phone 8 users right now. 

Take the Facebook app, which was built by Microsoft ' not Facebook. No surprise that the Newsfeed is marginalized in the center panel while the header gets prominent display. 

Worse, Windows Phone 8 is still missing some of my go-to apps. When I try a new device, the first thing I do is download the apps I use every day. So where is Spotify for Windows Phone 8? Where is Instagram? Path? Pandora? Flipboard? If I am forced to Microsoft's and Nokia's own set of services instead of the industry leading choicess, I am not going to be a happy camper. 

Grade: Incomplete

There are plenty of quality aspects to the Lumia 920. The PureView camera, NFC capabilities, a quality and responsive screen that rivals the iPhone for clarity, Nokia Maps (yes, Nokia does maps well), the concept of Hubs and Live Tiles and so on. 

The problem is a matter of execution. Good ideas, like the various hardware improvements to the Lumia series and the software improvements to Windows Phone, feel' incomplete. Microsoft and Nokia seem to have entered into a feature war with Android and Apple. They manage to win occassional skirmishes over particular features, but overall they are losing the fight.

What's Bugging Online Storage Users? It's Not Always What You Think

While people who use Dropbox and Box worry about security, users of services like Google Drive and Apple's iCloud seem  more concerned with implementation issues. Is that a sign of dangerous complacency, or is it only natural that the level of of security concerns vary between different online storage services?

Natural or not, that variation is clearly in place, according to a recent report from a tech-support community site FixYa. Note that while FixYa lets post questions to the community at large in the hope of getting a helpful answer, it differs from typical tech sites by covering a much wider set of consumer products and services - from washing machines to strollers.

Taking a look at its own question and answer database, the folks at FixYa put together a synopsis of the issues that are the most relevant to public cloud services. The results were intriguing, particularly because of where the most expected cloud-storage bugaboo - security - was ranked (or not ranked) among the services outlined.

Security Yes? Security No?

Security topped the list of most commonly asked questions about Dropbox, coming in at 40% of issues raised. Storage limits came in at number two, with file syncing was the number three concern on the list.

Security was not quite as big an issue for Box users, tied for first place with upload issues, each accounting for 25% of issues reported. Backup file questions ranked third.

Perhaps most striking, though, was the fast that for iCloud and Google Drive users, security wasn't a ranked issue at all. The problems listed all deal with application-specific issues.

For Google Drive help-seekers, missing folders was the top-reported problem, at 30% of questions. Syncing files and Google Doc auto-conversion were the second- and third-ranked questions, respectively.

Syncing information figured more prominently for users of Apple's iCloud, with the number two and three ranked questions centering around syncing with non-Apple devices and syncing between devices in general. The biggest reported question was very application-specific: 35% of users had questions about Apple's Mountain Lion OS X operating system update and its affect on iCloud.

Who Cares About Security In The Cloud?

This disparity is notable because it seems to run counter to the popular perception that all such public online cloud services carry fears about security. It may very well be that iCloud and Google Drive consumers are just as worried about security, but they're just not expressing it on community support sites. But it seems odd that security isn't part of the conversation about these services.

Actually, it may not be that odd at all - a very public hack of Dropbox this summer has led corporations like IBM to block Dropbox, iCloud and similar online storage services. Consumer identification of security problems may be associated with the Dropbox brand and the similarly named Box service.

There seems to be a public perception that the Google and Apple services are secure and don't required much attention about security. (Though companies like IBM don't share that opinion.)

Those services may very well be relatively secure, but almost any individual account can be broken into unless strong security guidelines are followed. An online storage service can be as secure as Fort Knox, but if someone has the right key, the gold in your account is up for grabs.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

ReadWrite DeathWatch: AMD

Intel's success and a shrinking PC market have seriously hurt the number two chipmaker. Does it have enough fight left to reinvent itself?

The Basics

In 1982, Advanced Micro Devices cut a deal with Intel to provide secondary manufacturing services for IBM. Under the terms of the agreement, AMD could manufacture Intel's 8088 chip, which IBM used for the now-legendary IBM PC. The agreement created a rivalry that would last through more than a decade of court challenges, as AMD continued to manufacture low-priced chips based on Intel's designs.

In the mid-1990s, AMD began to find its own identity with the K5 processor, a Windows-compatible chip based on in-house designs. The K5's low price gained it some acceptance from PC manufacturers and hobbyists building budget systems. In 1997, AMD released the much more powerful and successful K6 chip, which offered a substantial performance edge for the money over Intel's Pentium II. The K6 created major demand in both the budget and gaming sectors, and its price/performance advantage made AMD a solid second option for PC owners. AMD strengthened that reputation at the high end when it merged with graphics processing specialist ATI Technologies in 2006, adding Nvidia to its list of competitors. For much of the early-to-mid 2000s, AMD was the go-to for high-end gaming systems, both custom-built and vendor-sourced.

When it acquired ATI, AMD was on top of the world, with a market cap topping $18 billion. But the realities of the integration softened the joy, the recession of 2008 took a toll, and 2012 has been brutal. Last fall, AMD laid off 12% of its workforce on lower-than-expected numbers. This year, it's cutting another 15% after losing $137 million in the third quarter. As of November 20, AMD's stock has tumbled more than 75% in just six months. A Reuters article recently revealed that AMD has enlisted the services of JPMorgan Chase & Co to "explore options" that could include a sale of all or part of the company. Officers have downplayed the significance of the bank's work, stating that AMD is "not actively pursuing a sale of the company or significant assets at this time." But they haven't pulled it off the table, either.

The Problem

AMD has pointed to a number of temporary and very correctable issues that have contributed to its current troubles. For example, a glut of Llano chips on the market is dampening demand for upcoming products. While that certainly doesn't help, AMD's real problems are simpler and more intractable:

AMD is a PC company. Intel is winning the PC war And the PC pie is getting smaller.

In its PC CPU space (still the company's bread and butter), AMD has dropped the ball. Bulldozer was a massive disappointment, Intel has strung together a couple of clear winners with Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge, and the performance crown won't be leaving Santa Clara any time soon.

Could AMD fight its way back to desktop dominance? Maybe, if Intel stumbles and AMD knocks it out of the park - but at what cost? These days, hard drives, graphics processors or other components are more likely to be the performance bottleneck - so the CPU maters less than it used to.

Worse, the PC market is shrinking fast. Just ask Intel, which lost its shirt on miserable ultrabook sales. Tablets are already 22% of non-phone device sales and growing, while laptop and desktop shipments can't keep up. A losing position in a legacy market market isn't much to build on.

This is neither a secret nor a surprise. AMD management has seen it coming for some time. It just haven't reacted fast enough. In AMD's latest earnings report, CEO Rory Read acknowledged that 'It is clear that the trends we knew would re-shape the industry are happening at a much faster pace than we anticipated. As a result, we must accelerate our strategic initiatives to position AMD to take advantage of these shifts and put in place a lower-cost business model. Our restructuring efforts are designed to simplify our product development cycles, reduce our breakeven [sic] point and enable us to fund differentiated product roadmaps and strategic breakaway opportunities.'

In other words, AMD needs to do something new, and fast.

The Prognosis

AMD can't ' and shouldn't ' abandon its CPU business unless it finds a serious buyer, but it will almost certainly focus elsewhere, looking to its embedded products for growth. It looks like the company will try to crack the mobile handset market, as well, but based on the beating TI took before recently calling off the mobile charge, that could be an expensive, low-probability gamble.

As others have pointed out, selling AMD outright would open a very large, well-funded can of worms and could fan the flames of a legal war. Still, discrete pieces of the company's intellectual property could generate lots of cash.

Can This Company Be Saved?

There's only one way AMD gets out of this more-or-less intact. If a large enough company with substantial legal resources and a presence in the PC, tablet and smartphone markets wanted to diversify its hardware options, AMD would be a relatively cheap and easy way to do it. Unfortunately, there are only two potential buyers who meet those criteria, so there aren't a lot of options.

Updates On Previous Deathwatches

Sharp: Sharp has had to turn away applicants from its early retirement program after receiving many more applicants than expected. It will add a $311 million charge this quarter as a result.

To see more ReadWrite DeathWatches, check out the ReadWrite DeathWatch Series, which collects them all, the most recent first.

 

Chip image courtesy User:ZyMOS.  

How The Flood Of Digital Photos Adds Significance To The Ones We Print

In the age of digital cameras on a billion smartphones, the world is collectively creating a staggering number of photographs. You probably have a few hundred shots in your pocket right now, and that doesn't count the thousands you've backed somewhere else, nor the ones available from the cloud. On Facebook alone, people upload 300 million photos every day. 

Just as important, we have ubiquitous new ways to view and share all those photos, from mobile phones to tablets to computers of all sorts. With how radically technology has upended the way we take and share photographs, you'd think that printing images would be dead by now.

Far from it. As it turns out, the act of preserving our favorite images in the analog world is becoming newly meaningful.

The Internet and computers of all shapes and sizes have made producing and consuming content easier than ever. We're awash in more information, news, opinions, artwork, photographs, videos and songs than our brains know what to do with. It's overwhelming. Ironically, choosing to pull the best or most meaningful bits out of this endless digital river as it rages by and solidify them in a physical format, means more now that it did when all content was analog.

Today, analog isn't just hip. It's relaxing. Putting on a vinyl record is an altogether different experience from shuffling a Spotify playlist, just as cozying up with a paperback book can help us feel more focused than reading on an iPad. Likewise, tapping the "Like" button on a Facebook photo means one thing. Hanging it on your wall or refrigerator is quite another. Even better, turn your favorite photos into a book. 

Turn Your Instagrams Into... Pretty Much Anything

Look at Instagram. As the social photo app has exploded into the mainstream - hitting 100 million users more quickly than either Facebook or Twitter did - there's been a corresponding rise in third-party services designed to let people turn Instagram photos into physical artifacts. 

Sure, you could easily upload photos from Instagram or any other mobile source to one of the many standard photo-printing sites, but this new breed of Instagram-specific services streamlines the process by letting you authenticate with your Instagram account and pull photos directly from your own stream. With many of them, you can just select images and place an order from your phone. 

It's ideal for making the sort of glossy photographic prints we've always cherished, but people are turning to these services for much more than that. Printstagram sells Instagram prints, posters, photo books and calendars. Art Flakes has stickers. Want magnets? Try StickyGram. If you used Instagram to snap photos on vacation, Postagram will turn them into postcards. CanvasPop will print your photos on high-quality canvas. And the list goes on. 

Meanwhile, printing photos from Facebook and Instagram is now a standard feature on kiosks at places like Walgreens and Target. Long gone are the days where we dropped off a roll of 24 mystery pictures, waited an hour (or a week) and then shuffled through a stack of mediocre shots to see if there were any gems mixed in. 

Today, printing is a much more deliberate act, reserved for only the images we appreciate the most. The rest of them will sit on hard drives and Facebook Timelines to be scrolled through at our leisure. Many of them, of course, will never get looked at by anyone. The ones you take the time and trouble to print, though, those are the ones you're gonna make sure everyone sees.

Newspaper Pay Walls Are A Good Thing - Here's Why

Guest author David Brauchl is chief communication officer for paid content strategy experts Piano Media. He was a professional news photographer for nearly 20 years, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work in Sarajevo, South Africa and Germany.

Newspaper publishers struggle to successfully monetize their online content, and they are not getting any help from journalism schools, despite the fact that these are the very institutions preparing young people to enter the shrinking field and the ones you'd think would be trying to help newspapers stay alive, not hasten their demise.

Most people understand that the content found in newspapers costs money to produce. The cost of producing that content is not diminished when the content is distributed online.

Nobody should understand that better than academic professionals in the field of journalism.

Nevertheless, some in the field have become advocates for making content free, even to the point of encouraging students to circumvent newspaper pay-walls and, in some cases, showing them how it's done.

Teaching Students To Steal

One example is Kristin Gilger, an Associate Dean at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, who recently sent an email to all associate faculty detailing how to avoid a paywall that The Arizona Republic had installed.

'With the Arizona Republic/azcentral.com going to a pay wall, you may want to share the following info with your students (especially if they're required to read the newspaper for your class),' Gilger wrote. 'A PDF of the front page of the Republic is available at the Newseum Web site.'

Gilger's email set off a remarkable discussion among faculty in which several members detailed techniques for defeating pay walls. One professor, John Leach, explained to his colleagues how he circumvented all pay walls by using two computers, different browsers, deleting cookies and using the 'incognito' feature on Google's Chrome browser. He justified his subterfuge with the assertion that 'the students need that money more than Gannett stockholders do.'

Another professor, Paul Atkinson, claimed he had 'found a bypass to websites like the NYTimes and LATimes that restrict access.' His detailed instructions were to 'copy the headline from the website, paste it in a search tab. The results will show the title and source. Sure, it takes a few extra seconds, but I've never been denied access this way.'

A Lone Voice Of Dissent

Only one faculty member, former Wall Street Journal reporter Anthony Ramirez, questioned the majority's view that paying for content was reprehensible, writing that 'I'm troubled by this ballooning information-is-free ethos.'

University professors routinely include local newspapers in their curriculum to provide students with valuable examples of journalism in action. Clearly they must understand the impact a newspaper's failure would have on the local community.

However, the presence of a discussion like this at a premier journalism school where the ethical position is the minority view shows how difficult the business of journalism has become.

What is the source of this ethical collapse? When did even the people who depend on the future viability of the industry for the sustenance of their careers and the well-being of their families decide that stealing the news was an acceptable action? Who gave them that idea in the first place?

Papers Brought This On Themselves

One answer could be that newspaper publishers themselves created their own undoing. Starting 1996, all the news that was fit to print was given away for free using a business model that was wholly advertising-supported. This approach worked for a while, with newspaper advertising revenue topping out in 2006 at $64 billion.

What followed, however, was stagnation and decline. By 2011, advertising revenue from both digital and traditional sources dropped to less than $25 billion. Clearly, radical measures were needed to preserve the industry.

Enter the New York Times. The Grey Lady developed a reasonable pay-wall system that provided the casual reader 10 free online articles from the newspaper per month. For more dedicated readers, the New York Times requested payment for an annual subscription.

It worked. The paper gained more than 350,000 readers when the pay wall went into effect, and the business continues to add subscribers at a 10% rate quarter-on-quarter.

A Wake-Up Call To Newspapers 

While the New York Times' pay wall does not completely discourage content theft, the paper's bold approach served as a clarion call to the industry. With astonishing rapidity, other media publishers have jumped on the bandwagon. Currently, 25% of all U.S. newspapers monetize their content through some sort of payment system. Of course, there will always be readers who are comfortable with stealing proprietary content. No publisher can control the ethics of their readership. However, publishers can control the technology.

Until now, most content security was easily defeated by javascript, manipulation of cookies or browsers with incognito settings. Newspaper publishers, aware of the myriad flaws within their payment systems, have been ready for a solution.

Why This Matters To Me

How do I know about this, and why do I care? Genes maybe. My grandfather was the publisher of the Wheeling, W.Va., newspaper in the 1950s. My brother has been the editor of two major U.S. newspapers, and I made my living for almost 20 years as a photojournalist, covering most of the major conflicts in the 1990s, everything from the breakup of Yugoslavia to the Russian incursion in Chechnya.

I have worked for the wires, photo agencies, magazines, newspapers, even online, with Salon right when they launched. I know the value of news, how it impacts decisions made at the top, how it affects the people living in dire circumstances and how important a job being a journalist is.

I believe in media, and I want to see it survive, which is why, after taking some time to heal from PTSD, I got back in and joined Piano Media, a Slovak company, because it seems to me these guys, or companies like them, are the ones who will help journalism save itself.

The Piano Media Pay Wall System

In 2011 Piano Media developed a system that allowed publishers in Slovakia to bundle their prime content within a payment system and charge for it like cable TV. Subscribing readers paid one low price and received open access to everything within the system in return.

Readers have been receptive. Our system works. Within a very short amount of time, we expanded into Slovenia and then Poland.

We recognized that publishers in bigger markets were equally desperate to find ways to monetize content with technology that was both efficient and secure.

So we purchased the rights to software that could closely track audience engagement, enabling us to offer a proven payment system that could not be defeated by cookie deletion, use of multiple computers, special browser settings or alternative devices. This new system is called Piano Solo, and we will start rolling it out in December 2012.

I hope that our software will change discussions like the one that took place at ASU. No longer will teaching the wrong side of ethics and morality be easier than discussing both sides constructively.

I also hope that these discussions will help us restore the sense of trust we once had for our news when it arrived every morning.

Paying It Forward - Online And Mobile Style [Sponsored Post]

While paying with cash or credit cards won't go out of fashion anytime soon, but they're getting some serious competition. Online payments and e-wallets are about to shape not only how, but where and when we buy things. Even more important, they will give consumers the power to choose the payment methods that work to their advantage.

Catching Up To The Future

Advanced payment systems are not a new concept. Science fiction writers like Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury predicted electronic commerce and futuristic payment systems long before they existed. Both men pointed to a time when people and machines come together, exposing the possibilities of individual identity within a larger ecosystem.

In 1974, Clarke predicted personal computers, the Internet and online banking. Bradbury's Guy Montag from "Fahrenheit 451" used an ATM years before they were invented.

Today, futurists today like Ray Kurzweil opine about the "Eternal E-Customer" offerint tantatlizing glimpses of how devices and people combine in symbiotic relationships. Take the world's current fascination with smartphones. The fact that we can check our bank balance, pay for groceries and give our kids their allowance all with one small device that we carry around with us all day, indicates the intense desire for a simple, portable and personal way to interact with our finances.

What's Possible Now

A variety of companies and industries have been working hard to transform online and mobile systems. The larger credit card issuers have recreated their services online, while companies like PayPal transcend the traditional approaches to online payment. Mobile device makers, telecom carriers and others are now weighing in, with the likes of Google Wallet, Apple Passbook, ISIS Mobile Commerce (a collaboration between AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile), and Visa's E-Wallet making the most noise.

As more providers enter the fray, the benefits to consumers become clearer, including electronic coupons, discounts and reduced fees. In the U.S. alone, the redemption value of 'deal-a-day' offers ' offers distributed via digital channels that typically expire within a few days ' will reach $3.9 billion by 2015, according to a McKinsey research report. These coupons are partially a result of brand loyalty, according to Jip de Lange, a consultant at Innopay.

"We see payment methods that were originally offered online are now being offered in offline contexts as well, as the PoS [point of sale] terminal functions basically as Internet-enabled device," de Lange wrote in the Ecommerce Europe: Online Payments 2012 report. "This move not only secures growth potential for years to come, but also increases the relevance of these payment methods as they become part of consumers' day-to-day routine."

Uneven Progress

Many governments are already moving toward supporting online payment systems. The U.S. Government's Pay.gov service lets citizens pay and be paid by the government using online accounts. People in Latin America, China, India and Africa are even more likely to incorporate mobile devices in their online payment transactions. Europeans trend toward using online accounts for shopping the Internet, with 58% having done so in 2011, Ecommerce Europe notes.

Not all online payment technologies will emerge at once, and not all will eventually succeeed. Researchers at Gartner estimate that Near Field Communications (NFC) is at least five years away from mass adoption. In the meantime, security concerns and the lack of immediate adoption is making many companies disillusioned with aspects of NFC as a payment method: Google is all in, while Apple and PayPal are not.

Perceptions of security and privacy remain key issues for all online and mobile payment systems. A recent study by Edgar, Dunn & Company and sponsored by MasterCard noted that the lingering negative public opinion associated with online payments is hindering broader adoption.

Even as the industry finds ways to address these issues, experts agree that the potential benefits are too great to ignore. So just about every company in the financial industry is doing what it can to explore the concept with early adopters and build products that will eventually appeal to everyone.

Toward A New Normal

A $5 bill in your pocket may not buy much these days, but it still comes in handy when you want to leave a tip or buy a bag of fruit at the farmer's market. The need for cash will be around for a long time, but over time it's likely to become the exception rather than the rule.

The ascendancy of mobile and online payments will be clear when we stop talking about "online payments" and "mobile payments" as something different or exotic, noted Innopay's de Lange in his report. It will just be another way to buy stuff:

"The world is becoming more and more 'e.' So the merger of online and offline is basically the disappearing of the first and the latter taking over. In a few years' time, we will not be writing about e-payments or online payments because it will no longer be a meaningful category. We do still recognize channels and contexts and online payments will diversify to cater for all these channels and contexts."

As buyers and sellers become more and more comfortable with the online and mobile payments, the more likely they will reach for their digital wallets over their real ones. Without even noticing that they're doing anything noteworthy.

Tablets Passing Laptops On Black Friday, Says Analyst

Black Friday could produce a milestone, this time in the PC market. If NPD DisplaySearch is correct, today, the super-shopping bonanza after Thanksgiving, will be the day that tablets outsell laptops in North America.

The rest of the world's economies are expected to follow in 2015, when nearly 276 million tablets will ship, compared to 270 million laptops, according to DisplaySearch.

In North America, the inflection point will be this quarter when tablet shipments are expected to reach 21.5 million units, nearly 50% higher than laptop sales.

What's Causing The Shift?

The 'why?' behind the tablet juggernaut lies in the U.S., where more than 70% of households have PCs. With such a high penetration rate, pretty much everyone who wants a PC has one and the majority is choosing to buy a tablet rather than upgrade, DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim said.

Driving that choice is convenience. Tablets are more portable than a laptop, turn on immediately and meet the basic computing needs of email, browsing and entertainment. As a result, U.S. 2011 sales soared 200%, year to year, to more than 38 million units, according to DisplaySearch, This year, shipments are projected to rise 46%, to 56 million units.

At the same time, U.S. laptop sales have slowed dramatically. In 2011, shipments fell 2%, to nearly 55 million units, and are projected to rise by only 2%, to 56 million units, this year, DisplaySearch says. (Worldwide, the PC market is expected to shrink 1.2%, marking the first decline since 2001, according to IHS iSuppli.)

Who's Buying?

Interestingly, this is happening even as a key demographic group demonstrates ambivalence about portable computing.

People in their 20s and 30s who own both a tablet and laptop say their laptop is the more important tool of the two, according to a survey released this summer by consulting firm Deloitte. Older adults were much more likely to choose a tablet.

Major tablet vendors, such as Amazon, Google and Apple, certainly deserve credit for stimulating consumer interest. The companies have delivered solid products and have marketed them well.

Falling prices are also driving the market.

"The $199 price point has increasingly become the target to match or beat with the introductions of Google's $199 Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire 7," Shim wrote in a blog post.

While prices fall, vendors are releasing more options. In 2011, Apple's 9.7-inch iPad dominated with a 65% market share, Shim said. This holiday season, companies are trying tablet sizes between seven and 10.6 inches.

The Fate Of The Laptop

Laptops won't be going away anytime soon. While tablets are convenient for simple chores, content creation still demands and a higher-performing system. From 2013 to 2016, laptop shipments worldwide will have a compounded annual growth rate of roughly 7%, according to IDC.

Laptop growth in emerging markets will be much higher than in mature markets like the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, where the majority of people own a PC. Companies looking for growth rates over 10% will have to target Asia/Pacific, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Everywhere else, people will be holding on to their PCs much longer and will need to be given a good reason to upgrade.

On the tablet side, recent history shows us that even in a nightmarishly uncertain economy, people don't need a good reason to upgrade or even buy. Many hardly need a nudge at all. All hail the new tech king.

My Week With The iPhone 5: The First Of ~104?

Dedicated followers of ReadWrite may recall that a couple of months ago I broke my iPhone 4 and spent a week relying on a Google Galaxy Nexus. I enjoyed my experience, but decided that rather than switch to Android, I'd instead upgrade to an iPhone 5 when they became available. (See My Week With Android, Or Why I'm Buying An iPhone 5.)

Well, I hate mail-order, and I hate waiting in lines, so I planned to use my repaired iPhone 4 until I could just walk into a store and pick up the iPhone 5 I wanted. I'm not sure that you can do that anywhere right now, but I had no trouble doing so last week at the flagship Apple store in downtown San Francisco. I know that just about every tech writer on the planet has already weighed in on the iPhone 5, so I'm not going to go into the specs and such. Most likely you all know that stuff already.

Instead, I'm going to share a couple points that jumped out at me after using the iPhone 5 in my daily comings and goings. Some of these observations may seem obvious to some, but they surprised me.

The Bigger Screen: A Disappointment

Sure, the iPhone 5 has a bigger screen, but in my daily use, it didn't seem that much bigger. For viewing websites and apps, I often didn't even notice the extra size (and that's not meant as praise). I was hoping the extra space would ameliorate the screen envy I sometimes feel towards Android devices' whose screens seem to resemble the Great Plains or the Russian Steppes. No such luck. I still have to squint, or pinch-and-zoom to see what I'm looking at.

The extra real estate really came in handy only when I happily put 16 apps in a folder, and stuck an extra row of apps and folders on my home screen. That's saving me some clicking and scrolling as I navigate the 72 apps I migrated from my old phone to the new one. But that's about it. There's still not quite enough room for my fingers when typing, so I still make a zillion errors in every sentence. Autocorrect helps, but only to a point. Too often, it correctly spells a different word than the one I was trying to type.

The Faster Processor: A Sweet Surprise

I didn't think a little extra speed in chip would make a big difference. After all, it wasn't like I felt my iPhone 4 was slow. I was wrong. Even on the same Wi-Fi connections I was already using, the iPhone 5 was noticeably, significantly faster. Even after a week, I get a little thrill at how quickly apps and Web pages load and present data. It's so dramatic that I find myself using my phone more than ever, for all kinds of things that I wouldn't have wanted to wait for on the iPhone 4.

LTE: As Awesome As Promised

As an AT&T subscriber in San Francisco, speed wasn't my big problem, connectivity and coverage were. But the LTE service in the iPhone 5 seems to help all of those issues, too. I'm getting much better voice connections in my house (which had been problematic) and suffering fewer dropouts and other connection hiccups. And the speed really is amazing. I have 50Mbps Internet at home (see A Love Letter to the Cable Guy, or How Really Fast Broadband Changes Everything), and we have 100Mbps service at ReadWrite World HQ, but I hardly noticed the dropoffs when relying on AT&T's network.

As noted, the faster speeed is encouraging me to use the phone more, so I'm kind of worried I'm going to blow through my data plan and end up spending more money on service - that would be an annoying unintended consequence, although I'm sure AT&T would be thrilled.

The Physical Stuff

The iPhone 5 is thinner and lighter but longer than the iPhone 4. But none of that really made much of a difference to me. It still fits in my pocket, still feels good in my hand.

What did make a difference is that darn Lightning connector. (See iPhone 5's Lightning Connector Is A Bigger Problem Than Apple Thinks.) I like the fact that it goes in either way, but it doesn't seem very sturdy. And even though I spent $30 on the stupid adapter, it still doesn't work on my iPhone speaker units. It charges, sort of, if it doesn't fall over, but it won't play the music. Thankfully, the adapter does allow the iPhone 5 to work with the old iPhone connector kit in my car.

Two New Capabilities

The two most important new capabilities I got with my upgrade are no doubt Siri and turn-by-turn navigation. I'm finding Siri kind of fun to talk to, but not particularly useful. Too often, she doesn't understand my request, or can't find me a decent answer, so just returns a Web search. Yawn. So far at least, I'm asking her fewer and fewer questions. Turn by turn navigation is great, though, even with Apple's sketchy new maps. But at least for me, it's difficult to set it up and hear the instructions while I'm driving, so it's not as useful as I'd like when I'm driving by myself. Of course, my Google Nexus had similar voice commands and navigation features, and they weren't enough to get me to stay on Android. So it shouldn't be too big a surprise that these capabilities are not changing my life on the iPhone 5, either.

Making The Transition

One of the reasons I decided to go with the iPhone 5 was my investment in the Apple ecosystem - my whole family uses iPhones and it's nice to take advantage of some the Apple-only features together, like iMessage and FaceTime. (Sure there are other solutions, but these features work really well within Apple's walled garden.)

Moving to the iPhone 5 wan't completely seamless. It took a few tries to get iTunes (boy, have I ever mentioned how much I hate iTunes?) to back up my old phone and restore everything properly to the new one. I had help from an iOS developer, which was invaluable to learn about a couple key settings to make the process work - especially the need to encrypt the backup to make sure everything moves over properly. Things would no doubt have been easier had I been using iCloud. Or maybe not. (See Cupertino, We Have A Problem.)

Once I got everything moved over, of course, there was zero learning curve. The iPhone 5 had all the same apps and capabilities that I was used to using. I did have to re-pair my Bluetooth connections and call AT&T to change my voice mail password - after two years I had completely forgotten it.

On the other hand, I also didn't get that thrill of discovery or the excitement of playing with something new. The iPhone 5 feels like a sweet upgrade, not a brand new toy. That's a little sad and ironic, but I'm still happy I made the choice. At least until some whizzy new Android or Windows Phone 8 device comes out while I'm still stuck in the 2-year AT&T contract extension I signed to get the new phone.

 

Lead image by Fredric Paul. Inside image by Pamela Robinson.